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Jacob Ruppert elected to Baseball Hall of Fame

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Press Release |

The National Baseball Hall of Fame today announced that former New York Yankees owner Colonel Jacob Ruppert has been posthumously elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame by its Pre-Integration Era Committee.

He received 15 of a possible 16 votes (93.8 percent) from Pre-Integration Era Committee members, who considered individuals whose most significant impact on Baseball occurred through 1946. Election required at least 75 percent of the vote.

“The election of Jacob Ruppert to the Hall of Fame is a great honor for the Yankees organization,” said Yankees Managing General Partner Hal Steinbrenner. “Under his leadership, the Yankees became the most popular and successful team in Baseball, setting the standard which we try to uphold today.”

Ruppert becomes the 48th individual enshrined in the Hall of Fame to have played, managed, coached, owned or been a general manager for the New York Yankees. He joins Ed Barrow, Larry MacPhail, Lee MacPhail and George Weiss among Hall of Famers who had ownership stakes or were general managers of the Yankees but never played for, coached or managed the club.

Among all Cooperstown inductees, he becomes the seventh inductee whose “greatest contributions” to the game came as a Major League team owner, along with Charles Comiskey (Chicago White Sox), Barney Dreyfuss (Pittsburgh Pirates), Clark Griffith (Washington Senators), Walter O’Malley (Los Angeles Dodgers), Bill Veeck (Cleveland Indians, St. Louis Browns and Chicago White Sox) and Tom Yawkey (Boston Red Sox).

Ruppert became co-owner of the Yankees with Colonel Tillinghast L’Hommedieu Huston in January 1915, and took part in the most significant player acquisition in Baseball history with the purchase of Babe Ruth’s contract from the Red Sox in January 1920. After buying out Huston, Ruppert became sole owner of the club on May 21, 1922. He then oversaw the construction of Yankee Stadium, which opened on April 18, 1923. Later that season, the Yankees won the first World Series championship in franchise history.

During Ruppert’s ownership tenure, the Yankees won 10 American League pennants and seven World Series titles (1923, ’27-28, ’32, ‘36-38). Ruppert passed away on January 13, 1939, at age 71.